Thompsonians formerly denied the necessity of education in the practitioner. But now the candidates for admission to Thompsonian practice must study, and must submit to an examination before a board of Censors. And though Thompsonians have from the first denounced the medical faculty, and their institutions, they have now a medical faculty of their own, and have organized state societies. Thompsonians are not now so bold and reckless in their practice as they once were. In the infancy of this practice every sick man, whatever might be his disease, or his state at the time, was subjected to what was called “the operation,”—that is, steaming and vomiting with lobelia. But so many died during the “operation,” or immediately after it, that Thompsonian doctors have learned to be more cautious. Cathartics used to be utterly discarded by Thompsonians, but now they are quite extensively used. Indeed they have widened their range of remedies generally. Once lobelia and steam and red pepper were nearly all in all. But now they are making out a very considerable materia medica. At the same time they are dropping the names Thompsonian Physician and Thompsonian Practice, and adopting instead of them Botanic Physician and Botanic Practice. Once no Thompsonian doctor would practice vaccination, because as he contended, it was better to have even small pox, under the guidance of Thompsonian treatment, than it was to run the risk of getting ‘humors’ from the vaccine virus. But finding that their employers would have their children vaccinated, even though they were obliged to get the ‘mineral doctors’ to do it, some of them have gone into the business themselves. Such are some of the changes which have come over Thompsonism, giving it a very different character from that which it exhibited when it first came in its stern simplicity from the rude hand of its founder. Its popularity is already declining, and it will probably soon pass away, to give place to some other kindred delusion. FOOTNOTES: [13] Guy, in his Forensic Medicine, states that common salt taken in a large quantity has destroyed life, with symptoms of irritant poisoning. CHAPTER VI. HOMŒOPATHY.[14] Samuel Hahneman, the founder of the system of practice called by this name, was born at Messein in Saxony in the year 1755. At the age of twenty he went to Leipsic, to obtain his education, with but twenty ducats in his pocket. While he was going through with his course of education, he supported himself chiefly by translating English works on medicine. He professed to be dissatisfied with the common modes of medical practice, and after he took his degree, instead of becoming at once a practitioner of medicine, he preferred to gain his livelihood by translating books, and by contributing to various scientific journals in Germany.